


Timelines, and All That

by ValueTurtle



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 16:36:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValueTurtle/pseuds/ValueTurtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well, technically he never did say hello.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Timelines, and All That

**Author's Note:**

> Can fit into "The Last First Time" if that's how you roll.

It's cold in London, the wind bitter with a sharp tongue that licks underneath his heavy coat. He doesn't feel it – at least, not like he ought to – but Jack knows the score, knows he needs to be just another stranger wandering the streets of a dreary estate. The winter jacket helps, but the woollen hat worn low and the thick scarf around his neck are even better. There's two inches of unrecognisable face showing, and that's about as much as he can afford.

 

He takes a seat on a park bench opposite her house. Someone has scrawled “Bad Wolf” on the back of it, and his innate bravado is strong enough to call it an invitation. It doesn't stop him feeling a shiver of trepidation up his spine, though, and perhaps that is the right frame of mind for this visit: anticipation and foreboding are well and truly entwined around this five-year-old-girl.

 

There's a battered library book in his satchel and he takes it out. It's just as integral to his disguise as the clothes, and so he feigns reading for half an hour, an hour, looking up every few minutes to check the park for any sign of her. It's nearly two hours into his stakeout when the entrance to the block of flats crashes open and a skinny girl runs out, pigtails flying behind her.

 

Jack very nearly doesn't recognise her – he's looking for blonde hair, not brown – but Rose Tyler is hard to miss, particularly when she's sprinting across the park with a huge grin plastered on her face. All that's missing is a big-eared alien in a leather jacket at her side.

 

She's dressed in a school uniform, one that's too big for her and too rough looking to be new, but there's no self-consciousness in the way she clambers up the jumble of play equipment; no fear when she hangs upside-down on the monkey bars, her arms reaching for the ground. He watches her swing and then leap for the next bar, his heart decidedly in his mouth, but she catches it and gently falls to her feet, safe and sound and still grinning an infectious smile.

 

Behind his paperback, he smiles, too. Beams, really. Rose Tyler. _Rose Tyler_.

 

 

-.-.-

 

 

The second time he sees her it's an accident. Except it's not.

 

It's warm in London, with a soft spring sun shining down. He's dressed to the nines: smart suit, crisp white shirt, pathetically polished black leather shoes, and a hat resting on his well-read newspaper. His friend is late - only fifteen minutes, but his ego is awfully fragile at times – so he's trying very hard not to scowl at innocent bystanders, and to just thaw away the last of a terribly cold Wales winter. It's hard, though, when he's been to three funerals since November, and his loneliness is gnawing again, feeling, at times, as tangible as his own enduring body.

 

Jack very certainly does _not_ think about the Doctor.

 

It's a busy street, the one he's on, both in terms of pedestrians and vehicles, so he's continually scanning the area for a familiar face. The one he'd like to see is that of a young woman, blue-eyed and dark-haired with a really fantastic mouth when it comes down to it (and Jack should know). Jack's not sure if he'd like to see a manic grin and an over-sized nose in the crowd – he's still got a good ten years or so before it would be the _right_ manically-grinning Time Lord. The disappointment would kill him. Jack mentally adds in the rimshot.

 

Looking down at his watch – fancy, expensive – he sees five minutes has passed. He orders another cup of coffee and rubs that back of his neck, trying to dispel the sense of unease that had settled on him when he arrived in London this morning. He thinks it's probably just melancholy mixed with paranoia, his two constant companions. This, at least, brings a wry smile to his lips.

 

By the time he's finished his second cup of coffee he's decided he's been stood up. Jack pays the bill, tucks his newspaper under his arm and fits his hat back on his head. There's a hotel bar not too far away he could go to that might suit his need for company, so he sets off down the street. The throng of people walking along the pavement has increased, and he enters the fray, not bothering to wade his way through it: they're all headed for the Tube, and Jack's found himself excelling at going with the flow.

 

To his left there's a pocket of school children – he thinks they might be in fourth or fifth grade, but it's hard to tell. He can hear their teacher, a severe older woman with a pinched face, addressing the class, telling them to stay together and not wander off and would Miss Tyler _please_ stop whispering when she's trying to talk?

 

Jack falters as he walks, caught off-guard by the name though it's completely ridiculous to think that in all of London he's stumbled across Rose Tyler on a class trip. It's not, it turns out. Ridiculous, that is. She's there. Rose Tyler. She'd looked up at the sound of her name and it's unmistakably _Rose_ with freckles on her nose and a too-wide mouth full of teeth she hasn't grown into. Her hair is short now, cut to end in a blunt line across her neck, but still brown, still Rose. There's an awkwardness about her – she's less sure of herself, he thinks – but when she turns to smile at her friend it's the same brilliant smile as before, as if there's no reason in the world not to.

 

He feels completely buoyed from having seen her, a joy spreading through him that's done more to warm him than hours in the sun. And then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees a cyclist is riding up the pavement – _stupid!_ – and Rose is falling, arms cartwheeling out to stop herself, pushed out on to the road and into the path of an oncoming double-decker. She can barely get to rights before she's frozen by terror, her brown eyes huge and glassy as they take in the bus before her.

 

Jack doesn't even hesitate, doesn't even think, really. He parts the crowd and follows her, leaping across and knocking her out of the way. She stays upright, _yes!_ but he's splayed out on the tarmac with a huge bus bearing down on him. There's horns honking and people yelling and he can feel every second the wheel spends crushing his leg under its immense weight, but Rose is alive, shaking and pale in the middle of the road, surrounded by stopped cars and their drivers. No one has noticed him; all are concerned with the small child who nearly died. He gets to his feet, though the pain almost makes him black out. It'll be fine in a few minutes, and it's better to have people think he didn't get injured in the first place, so he limps back on to the pavement.

 

He can't risk going over to comfort her. There are timelines to consider and paradoxes and he really should have thought of it all before playing the hero, but he can't find it in himself to care, not when Rose is alive and in the arms of her teacher, who, despite first appearances, is hugging her tightly. Jack is laughing in relief and adrenaline, and he bites back a very un-British whoop. There's no need to bring attention on himself.

 

A lanky man dressed nearly as sharply as he is (well, was, before he got blood and bone fragment on his trousers, and before his shoe was destroyed) has thought to give the bus driver a hot drink. He's actually kind of cute as he pats the man on the shoulder and takes off at speed, long cloak flapping at his legs, running around to face the side Jack's on. It's only then that Jack notices that there's an ad plastered across the side, and he's suddenly very cold despite the weather; he knows enough French to parse half of _Méchant Loup_.

 

Jack drags himself away - only figuratively: his leg's recovered now, though his foot is showing through the split sides of his shoe. He grunts in irritation. He'll have to buy another pair – and on _his_ salary! He doesn't look back, and doesn't see the other man rubbing his chin, thick-framed glasses perched on his nose, flicking his attention between Rose (calmer now, safely off the road), the bus advertisement, and Jack's receding form.

 

-.-.-

 

It's sticky and hot in London the third time he sees her, out for a night on the town. He's not depressed, not right now, but there's frustration running in his veins and a tiredness he can't shake. Jack's so close to when he can meet the Doctor again he can almost taste it.

 

No one said the slow path couldn't be _fun_ though, so he's in a nightclub in London – recommended by one of the lovely young women he always seems to run into – dressed in navy whites and aviators. It's a Friday, the music is obnoxious and loud, though he'd never tell anyone that, and the mass of people dancing are promising. Very promising indeed, if the glances he gets as he walks in the door are any indication. He cocks a smile at a strapping lad in a tight shirt and gets a steamy look in return for his troubles.

 

There's a lull at the bar, so he walks up and finds a free bartender. 'What'll you have, mate?' the man asks as he wipes down the counter. 'Got a special on cocktails tonight, an' there's a house speciality, of course.'

 

'I'm adventurous,' Jack says, managing to imbue the one word with a world of meaning. 'Surprise me.'

 

'Right then,' he replies, and quickly throws together a drink – Jack catches sight of brandy, but nothing after that. A tumbler is placed in front of him, and the bartender explains: 'It's a take on the Big Bad Wolf, only smaller, so we just call it a -'

 

'Bad Wolf,' Jack finishes, eyeing up the drink like it might explode at any moment.

 

'Got it in one,' the man grins.

 

He pays for his cocktail and takes it gingerly, not so worried that he's willing to let good alcohol go to waste. Jack's suddenly very aware of all the people in the room, and the low lights that make it hard to pick out which one of them happens to be a very important person he's not allowed to meet. He'd remove his sunglasses to improve the odds, but then he'd have no disguise whatsoever. So much for fun on the slow path.

 

It's almost a relief when a girl with a terrible dye job bumps into him, spilling his drink all down the front of his outfit. She's crying, sobbing really, her mascara an absolute mess as it runs down her cheeks, showing even underneath her own pair of sunglasses. There's puppy fat around her jaw, despite the leanness of her limbs, and she's chosen a really awful shade of lipstick. This Rose seems, impossibly, younger than the ones he's seen before, simply because she's the Rose he remembers, just not quite finished.

 

It's still Rose Tyler, though, even if there's no smile on her face tonight. Her friend has her by the shoulders and spits, 'Watch it, prick!', at him before guiding Rose out of the club.

 

Jack hesitates for a second, then follows them out – cursing himself for being a fool. A gentleman, but a fool all the same. They're sitting together in a small courtyard, perched on cheap, plastic chairs put out by management. He leans against the brick wall, carefully watching the pair.

 

'S'alright, Rose. Shhh. Take it easy.' The friend is saying this into Rose's hair, rubbing her back with one hand and lighting a cigarette with the other. Her lighter isn't working, so Jack steps in, Zippo open. 'May I?'

 

'I thought I told you to piss off,' she tells him, once her fag is lit and she's taken in a drag.

 

'I'm sorry – you looked distressed, and I wondered if –,'

 

'Wondered if you could, what? Get us a drink an' see if we've lowered our standards?' She looks him up and down and sneers, 'Not bloody likely.' Jack can't help but be impressed. He nearly adjusts himself in his pants just to see if his manhood is still there.

 

'Oh, leave it, Shareen,' Rose mumbles. 'He's not the one who stole eight-hundred quid off me, is he? He's not the one who slept around with some slag called Noosh, he just gave you a light, OK?' That's apparently enough to set her off again, and she pulls out a natty paper napkin to dab at the smeared make up under her sunglasses. It's really not up to the task.

 

'He didn't deserve you, love,' Shareen tells her, sending a dirty look Jack's way all the same. 'That Jimmy Stone wouldn't know a good thing if it came up and bit him in the arse. And Mickey couldn't even stick around for the whole night! Men are pigs. Worse than pigs – you can at least eat a fucking pork chop. What can you do with a bloke, eh?'

 

Rose dissolves into sniffly laughter. It's enough for him to know she'll be fine. He gives the girls a bow and says good night.

 

With access to Torchwood files on his wrist, it's absurd, really, how easy it is to find the house. Seems a young Mr Stone called in a UFO sighting one evening a few years ago. The comments on his file indicated that the operatives strongly suspected he was, in technical terms, “high as a bloody kite”. There's a criminal file attached, even his juvenile record: some minor shoplifting, vandalism, possession, all before he was 16 – and one domestic violence charge that has Jack's blood running cold, then hot. He hails a taxi and gives the address for the south London estate.

 

Jack knocks on the door and hears a muttered, 'Comin',' from inside the dingy looking flat. A few moments later the door opens, revealing a man in his mid-twenties. He's good looking enough, hewing too close to pretty for Jack's tastes but he can see the appeal, particularly if he can play any one of the many guitars littering the inside of his home. 'Yeah, what d'you want, Navy Boy? Bit far away from the sea, ain't ya?'

 

'Good evening, sir,' Jack says, smiling brightly. 'I've got a delivery for a Mr Jimmy Stone.'

 

'What? At this hour?' He screws his face up incredulously. 'What on earth would anyone want to give me at 1AM?'

 

'This.'

 

The punch is solid. Jaw-cracking. Knuckle breaking, too, it turns out, as Jack shakes his hand and winces. Jimmy is sprawled out on the floor, moaning and clutching at his face. He gets to his knees, hunched over, and Jack can see a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth and a satisfying bruise starting to form on his chin. It suits him. 'What the _fuck_! You fuckin' hit me!'

 

' _That_ was from Rose Tyler,' he informs him, still as cheerful as before. He kicks him in the ribs, careful to use just enough force so there won't be a break, just some truly painful bruising. Jimmy grunts in surprised pain and slips, holding himself up off the floor with one, trembling arm, the other wrapped around his injured side. 'That one we'll say is from me.' 

 

Jack walks around, looking down at the other man. _One more_ , he thinks, _but what?_ It is easy in the end to choose the very vulnerable left hand of Mr Stone to step on, to put pressure down slowly until Jack can hear bones crack under his foot. He pauses for a moment, thinking, considering, and then twists 90 degrees. The man screams – not just in pain, but in terror – and he's weeping now, almost as hard as Rose was at the bar. He's muttering things under his breath, pleading, begging things. Jack squats down and removes his sunglasses so he can look Jimmy in the eye.

 

'Now, I want you to say “thank you” for that last one.'

 

Jimmy splutters, and he expels a blood-flecked breath on to Jack's trousers. 'What? Are you – what? You just broke my fuckin' _hand_ you fuckin' lunatic!'

 

'Yes. Now say “thank you”.'

 

He must see something in Jack's face because he licks his lips and manages to croak out a thanks.

 

'You're welcome.' Jack flashes him a smile. 'You _should_ be thankful. You see, if that last one had been delivered personally, well,' he raises his eyebrows, affecting a thoughtful expression, 'I can't say for sure what the man himself would do – he's a bit of an enigma, really - but whatever he'd do, it probably wouldn't include guitar playing in your near future. But me,' Jack taps his chest, above the orange stain that was the remains of his earlier drink, 'I'm an old softie. Go to a hospital, get your fingers splinted – you'll be fine.' 

 

Jack straightens up. He frowns, thinking, for a second, that he can see a second reflection in the dark glass of the windows, but when he turns he finds he's alone with the whimpering, pathetic mess that is Jimmy Stone.

 

'Right. You might want to consider a holiday. I hear Spain is just breathtaking this time of year.' He smiles again, slipping the sunglasses back on his face. 'Leave Rose Tyler alone. Understood?'

 

Jimmy nods. He's breathing harshly and gasping with pain and Jack leaves him there, making a quick exit down the stairs. As he approaches the foyer, he sees one last flash of blue through the windows and he shouts in dismay over the sound of a leaving TARDIS. He bangs his forehead against the glass doors in frustration, so angry he barely feels it. He needs to take a few breaths. He needs to calm down. He reminds himself that he doesn't even know if that was the right Doctor – and there's no point dwelling on missed opportunities, especially if they weren't opportunities after all.

 

When he peels himself off the door he notices a piece of paper stuck right next to where his forehead had rested.

 

“ _That wasn't your responsibility_ ,” the note reads, and Jack decides to get very, very drunk.

 

(Later, hungover and still furious, he'll take out the note again and flip it over. On the back there will be an ink spot, the sort from resting your pen on paper as you frown and debate whether to add more. Next to the stain it will say, “ _but thank you”_ in small, careful print.)


End file.
